TAGGING : The Making of My Very First - Act 1

I was tagged by my youngest brother Ma (Jamal) from Malas Corporation blog. Actually I dunno anything about tagging but me partner in life explained a bit to me how it works. So this is what I have to say...

1) Nickname
My parent called me my full name Johary which is not that long in spelling, only one word. But friends call me JOE, JO, HARY, ARY and even RY. There was a girl (when I was is school days) called me Jay. My name is like a coconut tree, you can use every part of it...

2) Knocked
I had the experienced being knocked over by a Volvo 240. It happened soon after I finished my scouts activities on a Saturday morning at my school SRK Raja Di-Hilir Ekram, Ipoh. It was in 1982 when I was in Std 6. I was standing beside the road with my friends & waiting for the traffic to clear & to cross the road. From there we'll take the public bus to go home.

Well, boys will always be boys. Pushing & calling names is a norm. This time we tried out scouts marching style. In the accidental event, I was the one who were the last in the line & it was like a domino effect that makes me off balace due to everyone was pushing one & another harder & harder. So the very minute a Volvo 240 arrived & passed us, I was somewhat jolted a bit to the front until entering the main road & the car side-bumped me on my right hand. I was knocked & spin-thrown back for about 10ft & lucky me another group managed to cushion-caught me (like a goalkeeper catches a swinging top).

The driver then sped away & disappeared... and the marching boys ran away too, accept for few that helped me.

3) Driving License
I took my JPJ writing exam for "L" license after I finished SPM when I was 17 y.o. But I've been riding "kapcai" bike since I was 10 y.o. & at 13 y.o I mastered the hand clutch lever bike (better known as "motor clutch"). At 14 y.o. I started learning driving car & my first car that I drove (sneeking) was atuk (granpa) car. Before I get "L" licence, sneekingly for years I've rode bikes to various parts of the Perak State, whether using abah (dad) Honda C70 (round headlight, 1st gear back, 2nd & 3rd front) or friends bike (their dad's bike, normally). I did this "living dangerous" style just because I love riding bike a lot! I still do enjoy riding until now.

Sneekingly also, I've done sideways driving & been practising it ever since I was14 y.o. at my kampung in the bushes of rubber estates & padi fields (atuk's Mazda 1000) & at the old mining routes scattered across the Kinta Valley (abah's Mazda 323 GLC). Both cars are rear wheel driven (RWD) & it's like addiction to this type of driving. Much of it was influenced by Hollywood TV shows with cars & bike chasing such as CHIPs, Knight Rider, BJ & the Bear, Sheriff Lobo & off course rally drivers. Nowadays nearly 99.9% cars r using Front Wheel Drive (FWD) system... no more fun with sideway driving...

Right until November 1990 I got my full driver's license, passing with one shot both car & bike test. The driving instructor had a very-very easy task when training me, he even slept once awhile.

4) Motorcycle & Car
1st bike
My first bike was my late atuk's 1973/74 Honda C70. It's a beautiful bike with original parts still intact. Since he passed away, from 1985 upto 1987 the bike never got out from atuk's house. So a month b4 Ramadan (1988), I asked permission from opah (granny) to get the bike "alive" again. With the help from Alang (abah's youngest bro), we pushed the bike to a mechanics shop. There I learned how to overhaul the engine, gearbox, changing the clutch plates etc... At the same time a "notorious hell rider" at Parit town named Amir Cat was also sending his kapcai to be overhauled. Amir Cat & his younger brother Anas used to be my childhood friend.

Then he showed me the tips of modifiying bike engines & getting as much horsepower as we can from a tiny 70cc bike engine... from that moment onwards I was hooked to it...modifying engines! Just Imagine his 70cc bike can reach speed up to 140km/h! At that time, you'll be a "king" if u could reach that speed with that kind of bike. I asked him where did he knew this stuff? He said from friends in Pengkalan & Kampung Melayu Ipoh... I thought, I must learn this stuff from those guys in Ipoh. I asked him again, who are they & he just asked me to find it myself... oh, he wanted to kept to himself eh... I'll find my way.. So, that year was my first Hari Raya visits using bike to relatives houses in Perak Tengah.

My late abah has 3 sibling brothers. The eldest is him, 2nd is Angah (Aziz) & 3rd is Alang (Helmi). Because abah's 2nd brother insisted to have the bike (he's the only one that didn't have any bike), sadly I have to surrendered it to him. I could only enjoyed it for 3-4 months. So bye-bye bike.

2nd bike
I have no other choice than taking abah's 1971 Honda C70. It's an ugly bike with rusted steel front mudguard taken from a Yamaha RX100 bike, a triple layers of seat cover, worn out rusty rear mudguard, a broken front body white cover (lots & lots of cartoon stickers on it), rusted carrying basket, big rear passenger bracket (very big!) & 100% worn out front tire. The answer to solve this bike's problem is to do restoration or "reconstruction" work. Before I took over the bike, it had no front brakes at all. And better still NO roadtax & insrns since the last 5 or 6 years!!!

I've used my savings & salary to rebuilt the kapcai. Slowly but consistently I changed each parts while using it at the residential area around my house. Lastly after the bike was up to a kapcai's minimum standard, I asked abah to do JPJ inspections to renew the insurance & roadtax. This has to be done due to the "Agong" title (NO rdtx, NO insrns) for almost 6 years.

I used the bike from 1988 & had been going major restorations, upgrading the engines to a super-duper powerful kapcai, re-paint to Volvo metallic green, up to chroming specific parts with shinning glowing appearance that made heads turned every time I passed by. The bike was called "Anak Naga" due to its reg. no AN843. It powered thru Seberang Perak-Teluk Anson-Parit-Ipoh-Manjung. The bike was so powerful that it only joined the bigger engine category like SS110, RX-S, RX-Z & Panther. Until 1993, abah uses his veto power to take his bike back from me... just becoz it was a beautiful speciment that got praised by people. So Bye-bye bike, again.

Continued...